38. Grace
Grace
He came for me. The words kept circling my brain as we climbed the cellar stairs.
He actually came for me. The police had come and left, and no amount of screaming or smashing wine bottles or chairs against the walls had gotten their attention.
But Garrett? My big, growly, impossible man had fought his way through a building full of armed guards and kicked in a door to get to me.
Well, he didn’t kick anything down. He ran through a door that was already open. But still, he’d run through it when it mattered.
At the top of the stairs, he raised his pistol, checked the corners, and angled his body to keep me behind him. He was moving stiffly, favoring his right side. He’d been bleeding from a gash on his forehead, so while he’d won the fight with Richter, he’d been hurt.
He got hurt for you, Grace. And he hasn’t stopped.
“Where’s the rest of your team?” I whispered.
“Spread across the estate, keeping tabs on the guards we put down.” He didn’t turn around, just kept moving forward. “Which way to the egg?”
I pointed past his shoulder. “Left at the kitchen, down the corridor with the paintings, double doors at the end.”
Two hours ago, I’d walked these corridors as Kessler’s prisoner, counting guards. Now the guards were on the floor. The first one we passed was zip-tied at the wrists and ankles, gagged, and unconscious against the wall. A man I didn’t recognize stood over him with a very large weapon in hand.
The pair of guards at the base of the main staircase—the same ones who’d stood watching me when Richter had brought me down to meet Kessler—were awake, but bound, propped up against the wall. Another man who nodded to Garrett nudged one of them with a boot.
“You didn’t kill anyone.”
“That’s not what we do,” he said, still moving forward. “Unless we have no choice.”
The scale of it struck me all at once. These men had been standing, armed, and alert when I came through here the first time.
And Garrett’s team had put every one of them on their ass without firing a shot.
This was what he did. What he’d spent his adult life training to do.
And tonight, he’d come here and done it for me.
For me. For little ol’ me. I wasn’t some fancy person who paid thousands of dollars a day for a security detail.
I was a coffee shop owner. An awkward woman who loved romance novels, her family, and who was definitely not going to start crying.
But I had to wipe away a tear that hadn’t gotten the memo.
I followed him toward the open double doors to the collection room.
Garrett went in first, sweeping the room from left to right. “Clear.”
He holstered his weapon. The cut and swelling on his forehead weren’t too bad, but when he pressed his hand against his side, it was clear how hurt he was.
Richter must have known precisely where to hit him to avoid the plate carrier.
Despite all of it, he smiled. Smiled. At me.
And then he winked. “Pack it up, Grace.”
I was a pile of goo again.
How many times had he said that this past week?
Finally, it wasn’t because we were running from the bad guys; it was because we were walking out the other side.
What would happen between us once this was all over?
Obviously we’d spend a few more days in bed, but would that be the end of it?
Would he say goodbye and continue his trip toward DC and his original job offer?
Think about that later.
I crossed to the centerpiece and flipped the glass case’s lid open. First, I placed the golden hen with the sapphire in its beak inside the golden yolk, and snapped it closed.
“Are these photos of the grandmother?” Garrett tapped a finger on the glass of a nearby case. “The one responsible for all of this?”
“He offered me forty million for it.” I ran my thumb over the smooth enamel of the outer shell and looked at Garrett. “Your five or ten percent would have made you a wealthy man.”
His brows furrowed.
“That’s what you said on the plane. Instead of accepting a payment from Arthur, you’d take five or ten percent of whatever I get for the egg.”
“Yeah.” He stilled, his eyes no longer focused on the photos in the case. He turned slowly to face me, his mouth opening, but it took a beat before any words came. “About that. I was thinking?—”
The side door opened, and Garrett and I turned.
“Oh shit!” Dr. Brandon Caulfield stood in the doorway, carrying a pistol. His eyes were wide, and the gun jerked upward to point at me. “What are you doing here?”
Garrett’s hand moved toward his holster, but Caulfield aimed at him, the barrel shaking enough for me to see it.
Caulfield’s voice was too high, too quick, when he said, “Don’t! Hands up, please.”
Garrett froze, then lifted both hands until they were at shoulder height.
My own hands had frozen inside the case. “What’s going on?”
“I said hands, Grace.” He’d protested before Kessler’s guards had taken me to the wine cellar. He’d said I wasn’t a threat and that Kessler’s money would turn the police around before anyone got to the collection room. He’d seemed like a man who was in over his head. So what was he now?
Garrett inched closer to me.
“No heroics, please.” Caulfield’s gun wavered, but he focused solely on Garrett.
I let go of the egg and turned to face him fully, putting my hands out. “Brandon, we both know the egg belongs to the Dubois family. You need to?—”
“Grace, I’m glad you’re safe. Truly.” He took a deep breath, as though that alone could fix everything. “I had nothing to do with what Conrad did. I swear to you, he told me he was only coming for the egg. I was as much a victim of his erratic behavior as you were.”
Victim? Did he seriously think I’d believe that?
“My team is covering the entire house,” growled Garrett. “You won’t get out.”
“I will, but I just need the egg.” His eyes flicked between us.
The gun shifted as his gaze moved, so it was pointing at me again.
“I’m so sorry it’s come to this. I was simply supposed to authenticate it.
I tried to tell Werner that sending Conrad after you was madness, but Conrad insisted for some inane reason.
Since you’re both here and he isn’t, I presume he either ran or he lost.”
“Brandon,” I said, trying my best irate-customer voice. “Please put down the gun and we can?—”
“Now everything is ruined, and I just need the egg, Grace. Please put it back together and hand it over.”
Garrett’s weight shifted in my direction.
The gun snapped back to Garrett. “Garrett, please do not test me. I’ve not used one of these in a long time, but you’re a rather large target and even with the vest you’re wearing, you’d be very hard to miss.”
“Stop pointing the gun at Grace.” He was pulling Brandon’s attention from me. He was trying to get between me and the gun, the same way he kept putting himself between me and any danger.
I couldn’t let him sacrifice himself for my belief about the egg and Didi’s promises. It was only a thing. He was… He was him. I couldn’t let the egg come before him.
“I’ll do it.” I forced myself to turn my back to Dr. Caulfield and lowered the yolk into the blue enamel shell.
How could I fix this? How could I get away with everyone safe, but without losing the egg?
Irate-customer mode, Grace. Tell him he’s right, but be logical.
“Brandon, putting the egg in your pocket doesn’t make it yours. ”
“It does today.” His voice quavered. “I remain open to a partnership, though. I have considerable resources. I can place this with a private buyer who’ll pay more than Werner’s forty million.
We can split it, you and I. You just have to give it to me and tell the police I was an innocent bystander. ”
Partner? Innocent? Did he really believe I would throw everything away for money? Of course he did, because he’d thrown his integrity away for money.
“You’ve been brokering for Werner Kessler for years,” I said, closing the blue enamel shell over the yolk. Cradling the egg in my hands, I turned to face him. “When he lands in prison, you’ll lose your?—”
Caulfield’s gun swung toward me again as his nostrils flared. He was angrier than I would have expected. Angrier? Was that right? Or was he panicking?
Why? He had the gun, and believed he’d be able to get out of the house unscathed. He already had Kessler’s money for everything but the egg. He had assets he could sell if he was in financial need. “Slide the egg across the floor.”
“He’s not the only one, is he?” I asked.
Of course. He was probably front-running for dozens of collectors. If word got out about what happened here, he was done for. He’d be too high-profile for clandestine agreements.
“Slide it,” he repeated.
Beside me, Garrett remained steady. But it was his moving fingers that caught my attention. Like he was counting? Counting down?
My gaze went past him, to the open doors at the end of the room. The ones we’d come through. In the hallway beyond, Radek stood with a lifted weapon, pointed directly at?—
Oh god.
The world exploded in violence, everything happening at once.
Garrett was suddenly lunging directly at me. He wrapped his arms around me, driving me sideways, his body folding over mine like a shield. A gunshot split the air—deafening, enormous—and a fraction of a second later, another shot followed.
Another.
Another.
Garrett bellowed as we crashed to the floor, his weight pushing all the air out of my lungs. We must have hit the display case, which smashed to the floor next to us, glass shattering everywhere.
He pushed off me with a groan, and I sucked in a sharp breath.
I lay stunned for a second, trying to hear something, see something.
I rolled my head to the side and saw Garrett.
He was on his back. His right hand was pressed against his left shoulder, above the plate carrier, and blood was seeping between his fingers.
His jaw clenched, and his eyes—those dark, complicated eyes—rested on mine.
No! No! No!
I scrambled the couple of feet to him.
A body moved through the room. It was fast, a blur of black with glints of metal.
“Garrett?” I choked out. I pressed over his hand—pressed hard. His blood was warm, and it kept coming, welling between my fingers no matter how much pressure I used. “Oh my god, Garrett, stay with me.”
He’d jumped in front of a gun for me. He kept doing this. He’d put himself between his mother and his father’s broken bottle. Between Jean’s team and insurgents in Afghanistan. And now between Dr. Caulfield and me. He gave everything for the people he cared about. Everything. Every time.
And he doubted he was a hero.
Arthur landed on his knees on Garrett’s other side, his hands joining mine on the wound, his larger palms pressing down over my fingers. “Ale? is a medic. He’s twenty seconds out.” He looked down at Garrett. “Galahad. Stay awake. That’s an order.”
“I’ve got a pulse,” came Radek’s voice from behind me. He must have been the blur heading for Dr. Caulfield.
Garrett’s eyes drifted to Arthur. Then to me.
“Move your hands,” whispered Arthur. “I’ve got him.”
I slid my fingers out from under Arthur’s and wrapped them around Garrett’s.
His face relaxed, like a lifetime of hurt was fading away, so the real Garrett was there. “Grace,” he breathed. Or maybe he only mouthed it.
My ears were ringing, and my eyes were burning. “I’m here.”
His bloodied fingers tightened around mine. His lips moved, and I leaned closer. “You’re my grail, sunshine. You know that?”
I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t lose him. “Garrett?”
“Hey.” Arthur gripped Garrett’s jaw, turning his face. “Eyes open. Ale? is coming. You do not get to check out before we go through another five rounds of contract negotiations, asshole.”
But Garrett’s gaze floated back to me. His fingers loosened around my hand, and his eyes unfocused, and they closed.
The world spun around me, and bile crept up my throat. “No! Garrett, no, please!”
Ale? arrived at a run and dropped to his knees with us. He nodded, and Arthur lifted his hands, allowing for a rapid assessment. Ale? moved fast, hands on the wound, on Garrett’s neck, lifting Garrett to feel the back.
“Pulse is weak, but present. Entry wound, clear exit.” His fingers traced down from the wound, and his jaw tightened. “Trajectory’s wrong, though. Bleeding’s not consistent with muscle. Could be the axillary. The bullet might have redirected under the scapula.”
Arthur swore softly. “Should we call a bird?”
“Ground transport will be better out here. No reliable LZ. Motol’s thirty-eight minutes. Have them get vascular scrubbed and waiting.”
Arthur touched the comms at his throat. “Merlin, advise we’ll have at least one requiring surgery, probably two.”
Ale? hauled several packages from his vest, dropped them on Garrett’s chest, and asked Arthur, “You have him?”
Arthur nodded. “Don’t let Caulfield die.”
Ale? was gone as quickly as he’d arrived.
I didn’t register half of what just happened. “What’s going on, Arthur? It’s just his shoulder.”
“There’s no such thing as just a shoulder, Grace. They can be nothing, or they could clip an artery, shatter bone, nick a lung. It depends on the angle, the—” He finally glanced up at me. “He’s strong. He’ll be fine.”
Another man joined us, and I moved out of the way, shifting to Garrett’s feet and wrapping both of my hands around his ankle. I needed to touch him. I needed him to know I was still here.
Arthur continued coordinating with Merlin over their comms while he and the other operator did whatever the hell they were doing for Garrett.
Bags ripped open, they treated the wound with something, covered it with something else.
I could barely see any of it through the wall of tears I wasn’t about to stop.
He talked about transport, a hospital, and how they were going to explain a private security team with zip-tied guards and two gunshot victims. He rubbed a hand across his face and muttered, “I have to call my father.”
Across the room, Ale? and Radek were working frantically over Dr. Caulfield. I couldn’t watch. There was too much blood. Too much… too much stench of gunpowder. And my ears were ringing.
And Garrett.
Don’t die on me, Mr. Grumpy Face.
He came here for me. And now this? He had to be okay. He had to make it. I didn’t care if it was brain chemistry or a little adrenaline. Now that I had him in my life, I didn’t want to let go.
Couldn’t.
I couldn’t let him go.